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Topic: General Tips and Workarounds (Read 67759 times)

Since it is missing: You can also scan any lvl for ore or gems. With the dig stairs selector move over the map. Anywhere where it shows red there is either ore on that location or there's some open space below.

I found a better way to detect ores, gems and caves then the dig stairs down selector. Use the replace wall selector, then you can see the whole level and the red blocks are where an ore or gem vain is.

I found a better way to detect ores, gems and caves then the dig stairs down selector. Use the replace wall selector, then you can see the whole level and the red blocks are where an ore or gem vain is.

This is probably common knowledge but I just figured it out and thought I'd share this little tip.

With the new "Craft To" option on workshops you can now basically "craft on demand" which is very nice. Here's how.

1. Set the item you want to craft on demand (torches are a biggie for me) to "Craft To" 1.2. Set the priority on workshops that produce finished goods (like torches, weapons, and furniture) higher (lower number) than the priority of your workshops that produce components (like planks, blocks, and bars).Done.

This way when you need a torch you just plop one down and a gnome will grab the one in storage and a new one will be made to replace it. Setting the priorities prevents specialty gnomes (if you have them) from doing things like crafting planks all day while a carpenter job is open and ensures you get a replacement for whatever you just used in a timely manner.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. It sure makes my game a lot easier without having to worry about all the workshops all the time like I did before.

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In single-player PC gaming player satisfaction comes from the journey and the decisions made along the way. Not the cutscene at the end.

I tend to keep torches at higher than 1, so there isn't any delay between the first and subsequent torches. Usually about 20 to prevent any "oops I'm out of coal and logs, but need a torch for this dark area".

I tend to keep torches at higher than 1, so there isn't any delay between the first and subsequent torches. Usually about 20 to prevent any "oops I'm out of coal and logs, but need a torch for this dark area".

Good idea. I usually have crates of coal and logs in storage though and the strip-mining/replanting OCD part of my brain tends to keep them overflowing

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In single-player PC gaming player satisfaction comes from the journey and the decisions made along the way. Not the cutscene at the end.

it's generally a good idea to give armour to all gnomes that have to work in dangerous areas. they don't need to be trained in combat, but a well crafted iron- or steeloutfit should keep them alive long enough until your army arrives to save the day.

dangerous jobs include:

- miners (they are usually the first to encounter a skeleton or worse when you can't place torches fast enough)- butchers (they might run into trouble when picking up goblin corpses for slaughter outside and another enemy is running around)- woodcutters (unless you only let them work on secure groves)- builders (if you let them build in unsecured areas of the map)- engineers (they like to reset traps while your enemies are still happily triggering them, leading to brilliant engineer-suicides. read also the next part "mechanical managment" for a way to keep your engineers alive)

just put all those guys in squads and give them some nice armour that you can afford and don't need for your real soldiers. you can even give them weapons if you like, although all of them will drop their right-hand-weapon when they begin working on their jobs. the left-hand-weapon-slot is generally fine though, so feel free to give them something there, too. shields are a good choice there.

once your gnomes are all in a squad, they will start to equip themselves with armour on their own, but not with weapons.to make them pick up their weapons, just send each squad to a training ground, wait for them to pick up their gear, and unassign them again. they should keep their left-hand-weapons forever now and continue on with their jobs.

if you also gave them weapons in their right hand, you now have a second army of lots of untrained worker-gnomes as a bonus. a reservist-army, so to say. feel free to call upon them to help fight any threat that your soldiers can't handle on their own. "brave amateurs - they do their part"

squads and uniforms can also be used for your gnomes in non-dangerous jobs, to be easily identified. dress all your farmers in leather for example, or give all your crafters a nice red copper-helmet. now you know the job of a gnome just by looking at him/her.

mechanical managment:

traps are great, everyone loves traps. but engineers like to reset traps while there are still enemies marching through them. while giving them armour might keep them alive for a little while, they will still die when there is a major mant-raid going on and your engineers are facing 20-30 angry insects on their way to reset traps. so what to do?

well, put all your engineers in a single squad and send them off to train at an empty training ground while the mants trample through your traps. this way, your engineers will happily punch each others faces for fun while your army and your traps deal with the mants the way they are supposed to. and after the battle is over, you can unassign your engineers from the training ground, and they can safely reset their beloved traps. no dead engineers in your corridor of doom.

levers are also great, but unfortunately they can only be activated by your engineers and not by any gnome. this might become a problem when timing is important. a simple way to deal with that is to use pressure plates instead of a lever, and designating a guard area behind it. this way, you can choose a gnome that might be in the vicinity of the pressure plate at any given time, assign him/her to a squad and simply send that squad over to the guard area behind the pressure plate, triggering your device fast and reliable and without the need of any engineering skills at all.

if your soldiers are guarding/training at your main entrance and you choose to use a mechanical wall as a gate for example, you can use your soldiers this way to open/close the mechanical wall by simply sending them off to another guard area.

but you don't have to use your soldiers of course, you can also put your important switch in the form of a pressure plate / guard area combination somewhere near your workshops, were most of your craft-gnomes are at any given time. then simply create a squad of your craft-gnomes and use them to trigger the pressure plate.

hope this helps.

also please excuse my bad english/spelling, I'm german. if anyone wants to put this stuff on the wiki, feel free to do so and to edit it into better english

traps are great, everyone loves traps. but engineers like to reset traps while there are still enemies marching through them. while giving them armour might keep them alive for a little while, they will still die when there is a major mant-raid going on and your engineers are facing 20-30 angry insects on their way to reset traps. so what to do?

I set a squad of guards with just the mechanic job, and militia. After they kill stuff, I unassign them from the training room and they run out and reset all the traps, then I either reassign them back to the training room or give them a break in the great hall.

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Some minds are like concrete,all mixed up and permanently set. ---A Red Rose Tea Bag

I'm not sure if its been suggested or not, but if you make an overflow pasture (I use yaks for better combat skills) around every edge of the map where mobs can spawn, it makes for an excellent mant detector. If you get a message a yak died, there's a hostile in the area, and you can check it out. Since putting mine up, I've only had mant scouts, no workers/invasions.

One of the clues that changed my game most was:DO NOT SELL STONE BLOCKS YOU IDIOT, STONE STATUETTES ARE 10 TIMES MORE WORTH!

It may be a few months old post but something I'd like to expand on utilizing stone as sellable goods. Once you research the means of producing musket rounds, it is almost always more profitable to produce these instead of statuettes since one raw stone produces 32 bullets and each bullet can be sold for 1. This means each raw stone can be manufactured into 32 trade points instead of 10 from a statuette. The only time the statuette beats a pack of bullets is a 50 trade point worth legendary.